In addition to finding labor, retaining labor is also a challenge. Warehouse jobs are often physically demanding with long hours and overtime shifts. Many warehouse tasks are dirty, dull and potentially dangerous. It’s hard work and with less available labor, current employees are feeling overworked and under-appreciated. In addition, the workforce is changing. The aging labor force and a younger generation joining the labor pool will have a major impact on businesses going forward.

Challenges Impacting Labor Availability

Retirement

The aging workforce has caused a gap in available labor. Aside from many baby-boomers retiring during the pandemic in 2020, the trend will continue to go up for a few more years because the post-WWII baby boom peaked in 1960. Since most people leave the labor force at age 65, when they can collect full social security benefits, the number of people retiring will continue to rise through 2025, when the numbers start to decline.

Millennials Are On the Rise

Born between 1981 and 1996, millennials are rising into leadership positions in warehouses as  the previous generation retires. Millennials have grown up with the internet and smartphones, and they have different expectations than their predecessors. Millennials want an employer that cares about their well-being, more work-life balance and job stability. This new generation of leaders wants more purposeful work. 

High Quit Rates

In 2022, 50.5 million people quit their jobs. People didn’t just resign and leave the workforce – they quit their job because they found another opportunity with better pay, work flexibility, benefits, or corporate culture. Warehouse associates are on their feet all day, walking up and down aisles. It isn’t an easy job, which causes many warehouse associates to rethink their career path.

Retaining Labor
With employees leaving their jobs and transitioning to more appealing or fulfilling work, attracting warehouse employees is challenging. Companies are using incentives such as hiring bonuses or increased wages to draw people in. Oftentimes, warehouses have to scale up for seasonal spikes as well. With this in mind, incentivizing your most productive seasonal hires with a permanent position after peak can help retain skilled labor for the future.

Many of the top logistics companies offer benefits that include:

• Competitive wages – increasing hourly wages to accommodate cost of living and inflation as well as differentials for overtime 
• Healthcare – insurance coverage gives employees peace of mind when it comes to seeking medical care when needed
• Flexible working hours – swapping shifts to accommodate sicknesses, to attend a training, and working remotely (as appropriate for the role) are all aspects of flexible working arrangements 
• High-quality cafeterias – lower cost or free meals for associates
• Tuition reimbursement for college classes or training courses
• Company events to boost morale

Using Autonomous Mobile Robots to Retain Labor

In addition to the benefits listed above, many operations are looking to innovate their operations to make a warehousing career more attractive. Implementing flexible warehouse automation, such as autonomous mobile robots (AMRs) can take manual picking operations from mundane and labor intensive to more engaging and more productive for your warehouse associates. 

With system-directed workflows, 6 River Systems AMRs travel autonomously throughout a facility directing an associate to a precise pick location. Once all orders have been picked, the AMR travels to a shipping area.

Learn more about Autonomous Mobile Robots

Here are 5 ways AMRs improve labor efficiency:

1. Increased Productivity
   Order pick rates with AMRs can improve by double or triple over manual methods. By reducing extra walks throughout the warehouse, associates spend more time picking and less time searching for products. Increasing throughput today supports growth for future demand.
2. Ability to Better Manage Peaks
   Instead of hiring more labor during peak, consider supporting the associates you already have by increasing their productivity. AMRs provide more flexibility in dealing with fluctuating demand. Additional AMRs can be deployed to reduce manual work and get more orders out the door.
3. Better Accuracy
   Customer satisfaction is enormously impacted by accuracy. To avoid mispicks and improve order accuracy, AMRs can be integrated with barcode scanners and pick lights for confirming picks. This ensures customer orders will be fulfilled correctly, the first time, to reduce errors and the risk of a return.
4. Real Time Data Visibility
   When implementing warehouse automation, find a solution that offers a software component with real-time performance data. Insight into inventory availability, warehouse throughput and even how an individual or team is performing is valuable information. This data can pinpoint areas for improvement as well as associate engagement during the day.
5. Reduce Training Time
   Manual picking with a cart and paper pick list can take a couple of weeks to learn and a month or two to reach full time-to-productivity. This is partly due to the complexity of the role and tasks, but also the walking and searching associated with manual picking operations.Warehouses using automation, such as AMRs, only need a couple of hours for training associates to pick and only a few days to reach full productivity. Order picking is more straightforward with AMRs which show the item to be picked on screen with a picture, simultaneously displaying the pick location and using put-to-light to show where to place the chosen item. Given the high turnover in warehouse jobs, reducing training time is vital for addressing labor shortages.

Overcoming the Labor Shortage

As labor becomes more and more difficult to find, focus first on existing employees. Implementing AMRs can support an existing workforce by optimizing processes throughout the warehouse. Making warehouse associates’ jobs easier will aid in retention and can attract labor as well.

Learn more by downloading the white paper: Addressing the Labor Shortage.

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We all saw the shift from shopping in-store to online during the pandemic. And although e-commerce sales grew 14.2% in 2021, this growth is more on par with pre-pandemic levels as consumers are returning to in-store shopping. Omnichannel retailers must find a balance to support both in-store and online customers as shopping habits continue to change in 2022.

To be prepared for peak this year, it’s time to evaluate processes, from hiring seasonal labor to managing accurate inventory, in order to prepare for periodic spikes in fulfillment.

Flex labor to meet demand

Retailers need to add seasonal labor more often than the one time holiday sprint. This can be extremely difficult because not only is labor already scarce, but reliable labor is even harder to come by. Finding and hiring labor outside of “traditional peak” can be even more challenging. According to a recent survey by Modern Materials Handling, 60% of respondents said there were “too few candidates to interview”. This begs the question, how do you fulfill more orders with less labor?

To increase productivity and meet peak demand, operations should consider automating the picking (and replenishment) process. Speeding up fulfillment provides a competitive advantage, and enables your business to meet service level agreements (SLAs) such as same or next day delivery.

There are several technologies on the market, so when labor is hard to come by, make your existing labor force more efficient with tools that will enhance their job performance. For example, implementing barcode scanning to confirm picks will increase order accuracy. In addition, autonomous mobile robots can help attract, train and retain employees. By directing an associate directly to a pick location, the risk of human error is reduced and productivity increases, which means more orders going out the door.

Stay ahead with “just in case” inventory

Keeping inventory organized will help ensure more accurate inventory counts. With supply chain disruptions unexpectedly interfering with inventory availability, stocking additional Just In Case (JIC) inventory might be the way to go this season. Another consideration though is end of season turnover. After each season, sporting goods stores must liquidate or deeply discount products to free up storage space. To reduce the financial impact this has on an operation, be sure to look at historical data to find the sweet spot. The right amount of inventory on hand will help you avoid “out of stock” messages and can provide a competitive advantage against those less prepared.

Timing is everything. Another way to stay ahead is to consider fulfilling orders directly from stores to end users. Connectivity throughout all store locations and fulfillment warehouses will provide inventory information across your entire operation. This reduces stock outs and ultimately improves customer satisfaction.

Customer satisfaction is the ultimate goal

To keep customers coming back for more, retailers will need to provide excellent customer service in 2022. Therefore, getting orders out the door quickly and accurately is a necessity to earn repeat business. Additionally, meeting or exceeding delivery expectations and offering alternatives for pick-up such as curb side and buy online pick up in store (BOPIS) can attract new customers.

As order volume increases, so do returns. Operations need a solution to ramp up both order fulfillment and replenishment to keep up. Automation will not only benefit your business in the off season, but it will enable you to scale up quickly to manage the influx of customer orders and potential returns as well. Technology offers flexibility and scalability to meet the changing needs of your business. Using technology and labor together, will enable you to pick and putaway faster than labor alone.

Partnering with a warehouse fulfillment solution provider allows you to design your picking strategy to be flexible and scalable when you need it. Deploying autonomous mobile robots, increase efficiencies in your entire warehouse, starting with your labor force. Moving from picking to packing to putaway, AMRs can lead the way to faster fulfillment. Get ready for peak fulfillment with 6 River Systems!

The post Scaling up for peak fulfillment this season appeared first on 6 River Systems.

For most operations, this short-lived volume increase makes it both inefficient and costly to make any major infrastructure transformations within the warehouse. Historically, warehouse operators have relied primarily on seasonal labor to increase throughput to meet peak demand. However, due to record low unemployment rates in recent years, this approach is no longer feasible. 

In September 2018, unemployment rates in the US dropped to 3.7%. This marked the lowest rate in the US since 1969, and it has remained in the 3.6% to 4% range through October of 2019. This labor shortage caused 20% of warehouse jobs to go unfulfilled in 2018, and similar outcomes are forecast for this peak season. Even after operators increased wages in an effort to attract employees, the available supply remained so limited that this gap could not be bridged.

To further exacerbate this dilemma, customer expectations around delivery time have drastically increased. With Amazon as the number one online retailer offering free one-day shipping–and, most recently, two-hour shipping–consumers expect their packages to arrive immediately and free of charge. 

This shift in expectations has caused the bar for fulfillment to be higher than ever before. If retail and ecommerce warehouses are unable to keep up with Amazon’s standards, especially during peak, they risk losing market share to those who do. 

The case for collaborative robots:
Scalability, quick implementation, labor shortage

Collaborative robots, or “cobots,” are the new way warehouses fulfill. Their flexible and adaptive capacity allow them to increase both productivity and order selection accuracy in warehouse operations. These benefits are especially critical during volume peaks, as the ongoing labor shortage prevents operations from being able to rely on seasonal labor to bridge the gap. 

Therefore, it should come as no surprise that cobots are on the rise. ABI Research projects the current number of robotic warehouses to grow by more than 12x by 2025, at which point there will be 4 million commercial robots in over 50,000 warehouses. 

Below are some of the key flexibility factors throughout the entire life cycle that make cobots so compelling:

How to achieve peak productivity:
Consider experience, solution breadth, fast ROI

While there are several different collaborative robotics systems to choose from, 6 River Systems’ (6RS) solution is uniquely differentiated from its competitors.

• Team: The founders are former Kiva executives, and possess unmatched experience and success in designing and implementing successful warehouse robotics systems. The team has installed more collaborative robotics systems than any other company.
• Product Line: With fully automated picking, sorting, and packout products launched in 2019, 6RS has extended its capabilities to an end-to-end fulfillment solution. The system, based on a patented worker directed approach, integrates with a wide variety of material handling and software systems.
• Ongoing Value: Chucks gain core product functionality in addition to new features every year. Chuck was initially released as a cobot for discrete order picking. Just 2½ years later, the same Chuck also can batch pick, replenish, be used in automated picking, and charge automatically when its battery is low. The capabilities will expand even further by next peak season. 
• Analytics: Embedded dashboards provide operational insights on associate performance and hours worked by task type. Operators leverage this data to identify potential problem areas and for labor planning.
• Customer Success Focus: After implementation, 6RS assigns a multi-disciplinary, dedicated team with a single point of contact to ensure success. 6RS has committed to raising the average performance rate of its customer sites over the course of 2020. 
• Return on Investment: 6RS increases productivity by 2-3x and is installed in weeks, making the return on investment extremely compelling.

6 River Systems customer success stories

	“We think we’ve found a really great partner in 6 River and a really great technology on Chuck. We look forward to building upon that and taking off from here as we continue to improve our operations.” – Bob Abbondanza, Senior Director Supply Chain Engineering and Network Design
	“In peak season, we will have a greater capacity and be able to pick more with less labor by using 6 River Systems.” – Ryan Robertson, Director of Operations, Retail Logistics
	“We hit a return on investment with 6 River Systems in about 4 months. We wanted to streamline the process and remove as many steps as possible. With 6 River Systems, pickers stay in aisle the entire time and the amount of units they’re processing per hour has tripled.” – Ryan Cox, Industrial Engineer

For more information, review success stories from several 6RS customers, including ACT Fulfillment Center, NFI, Healing Hands, and Office Depot. We can also discuss the solution that’s right for you. Contact us today.

About the Author

Callie Moriarty is one of 6 River Systems’ first Customer Success Managers. She is responsible for the optimization, success, and overall customer satisfaction at ten live 6RS customer sites. After being a part of 6RS’ holiday peak season in 2018, she wanted to share the overwhelming value of collaborative robotics with her current and future customers.

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